


Liminality: Prologues

by sith_shenanigans



Series: The Old Republic: Liminality/Discontent [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, The Sith Empire Is Awful (As Usual)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:53:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23401801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sith_shenanigans/pseuds/sith_shenanigans
Summary: On Verios, as the Galactic Cold War smoldered, two Imperial slaves plotted their escape.It was a foregone conclusion, then, that only one would make it.
Relationships: Female Sith Inquisitor/Female Smuggler
Series: The Old Republic: Liminality/Discontent [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683364
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Liminality: Prologues

_10 ATC, 9:8 / 7 Adast, 1576_  
_Verios Station_

Warmth.

Darkness.

Something drifted into that long, timeless moment, the thinnest possible hint of escape—

And through sheer spite, through death-defying panic, Ahene clawed her way out of the next-closest thing to the Void. 

Her pain was electric. It was a keening wail in her skull, and the thing pounding on it besides; it was everything she’d ever felt, every punishment she’d earned. She moved, and found she was moving through some viscous liquid. There was a transparisteel wall around her, too—she was locked in here, with the power and the horrible all-consuming rage.

On the other side of the kolto tank, one palm pressed against its shell, a man watched her with faint interest. 

He had a high, thin face, traced with an intricate web of dark veins. His skin seemed almost translucent, save for the three thick crimson lines that ran from his bottom lip to the base of his collarbone. The earthy brown of his hair was a stark contrast, almost too normal for him—the golden bindings that held it back from being a sheet nearly vanished under the sheer volume of it. They were little glints of affluence, peeking out from inside the nigh-disheveled mass, not providing dignity so much as proclaiming that he didn’t need it.

It was him, she could somehow feel, that had begun to call her back to herself. Him and his terrible hint of a smile trying to anchor her here. Him, with a gaze that burned like the core of a star, like a pressure that knew no light—

“Wonderful,” murmured Darth Kelshrin, the word coiling like smoke through Ahene’s soul. “I wasn’t certain you would survive.”

She hated him. Oh, Void, it wasn’t even in question. She hated him more than she’d ever hated anybody, with all that red raw fury trying to tear its way out of her chest, and she knew that if she let it loose onto him he’d drink her dry and _still_ be empty. Holding back was still a struggle. She might as well have been trying to keep a thunderstorm in her chest, keeping it from spilling out into a tempest. Ahene tried to hold it back anyway, seething quietly in her tank. 

Kelshrin’s smile crept across his face, thinning out even more as it did. “Poor child,” he said, without any of the emotion that might have gone with it—no pity, no cruelty, no hint she could ever be significant to him. It seemed like a clinical observation, in his mouth. “You find some sort of power for the first time in your life, and then find that it still cannot save you.” He clasped his hands. “Not yet.”

He wasn’t entirely wrong. But she didn’t need him to tell her what she already knew.

“The theft of my apprentice’s ship was… inconvenient. But not unforgivable.” He paused, allowing space for a response she wasn’t capable of giving. Just as well; it might have been obscene. “And your escape attempt showed a sort of promise, even in its failure.”

 _Failure?_ she didn’t—couldn’t—say. It was almost funny, in a terribly bleak sort of way; he thought she’d failed. And, well, maybe she hadn’t _won_ , but Sirue had escaped. Sirue was alive, and she’d escaped. He had confirmed it himself. 

She’d done what she could.

It had mattered.

Her sacrifice hadn’t, at least, been for nothing.

And it sounded like she wasn’t actually about to die, either, even if most of her nerves were trying to tell her otherwise. _Promise_ wasn’t the sort of thing people saw in condemned prisoners or future ritual sacrifices. _Promise_ implied another purpose, another chance to survive, another opportunity to escape…

Kelshrin drummed his fingers on the transparisteel, slow and staccato, counting off some unknown thought. “I could take you as my own apprentice, if I desired. That is within my right as a Dark Lord of the Sith, as Verios is my domain—and you are thus mine in a different sense, even as your gift has won you freedom.” He let the words linger for a moment, but moved on more quickly than he had before. “Or I could indulge my apprentice’s request and grant you to her, to train as her own. She has lessons yet to learn, but she has earned her lordship.”

There was a ‘but’ coming. What would follow it was unclear, but it was coming, she could feel it—

“But I will do neither,” he said, as if on cue. “Can you tell me why?”

Her irritation surged like a living thing, all out of proportion. _No,_ she hissed into her own head. _Obviously not._

“A pity.” Kelshrin stepped away from the tank. “No. I am not a fool,” he said, in that same smooth, cold tone. “I see the expression on your face. I sense the hatred you hold for me. So I will give you a better outlet—and you, acolyte, will know that I saved your life.”

He had wanted the planet, some decade ago. He’d shattered her life and so many others, all so he could claim those damned precursor ruins. Did he think her grudge would _fade_? 

He thought—something. It was hard to tell what was behind that smile, so sharp and controlled, but she couldn’t think it was an underestimation of… anything. Perhaps he just didn’t think it mattered, as long as she paid up in the end.

 _Fine,_ she thought, fighting through the simmering haze. _It won’t matter. I’ll learn to control this, but I’ll escape long before you can call anything in. No revenge for me, no debt for you. And you can just choke on it._

Kelshrin reacted as if he’d _heard_ her, to her horror, tipping his head to the side thoughtfully. He looked like he was weighing some secret, held just on the tip of his tongue. “Try, acolyte,” he said—without reproach, without malice. “Sith must seek their freedom. And I will watch with interest.”

With that, he turned and moved away, pausing briefly by the door to say something to the medical droid—

And then a black emptiness receded, and he was gone.

Ahene drew her legs up as much as she could, dragged her arms around to hold them, tilted her head down until the long tube on her mask drifted between her knees. The only sound she could produce was a strangled whimper.

He’d been in her head.

He’d been _in her head_.

Had he been listening the whole time? Tasting every thought? Ahene imagined his fingers ghosting over her skull, seeing her as a captive insect or a puzzle he’d always known how to solve, and shuddered in her jar. She was completely exposed here, physically and mentally. No way out. No escape…

Her fear was terribly sharp in her head, as overwhelming as the anger. _Patience,_ she told it, and clung to herself. She was the only lifeline she had. _Just be patient._


End file.
